Cambridge Historian Hugh St. John Spencer has uncovered a new collection of letters and diary entries from British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain, who is best known for signing the infamous Munich agreement with Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 28 May 1937 to 10 May 1940. Chamberlain is often accused of selling Czechoslovakia down the river and paving the way for Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939.

But these new documents uncovered in the British archives, reveal that Chamberlain, who resigned the day the Germans struck West on 10 May 1040, and who died the following November, until the end believed that his diplomacy had been perfectly appropriate. “I can see now that I was simply a man ahead of his time,” Chamberlain concluded. “I had not understood that Herr Hitler did not realize that he was a leader in the Twentieth Century, and a man who was incapable of recognizing the wisdom of my policies.” The former PM went on to conclude that: “What can I say, other than that the British people let me down when they eagerly embraced the soi-disant leadership of that buffoon Winston Churchill!”